EFCC invites judge who accused Aregbesola of fraud

THERE were indications in Osogbo on Sunday that Justice Folahanmi Oloyede, who recently accused Governor Rauf Aregbesola of graft, had been invited to the Abuja headquarters of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

A source close to the judge told journalists in Osogbo, the Osun State capital, on Sunday that the judge was contacted by an official of the EFCC, who asked her to come to the Abuja office of the commission to assist them in the investigation into the allegations.

Oloyede, a serving judge in the Osun State judiciary had recently petitioned the state House of Assembly, asking that impeachment proceedings be commenced against Aregbesola, who she also accused of being corrupt.

The source said the judge had expressed her readiness to assist the anti-graft agency if they come to Osogbo to investigate the petition but that she could not afford to travel to Abuja at the moment.

The judge had in her petition written on June 19 to the Speaker of the Osun State House of Assembly, Mr. Najeem Salam, accused Aregbesola of financial recklessness.

She had also sent a copy of the petition to the EFCC and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, among others.

The governor had told the House of Assembly during the inauguration of the lawmakers in June that his administration had received N20bn from federal allocations and internally generated revenue since inception till the end of 2014.

But the judge said the state got N538bn and alleged that the governor falsified the figure in order to hide the balance of the receipts.

Her petition read in part, “Mr. Governor is deemed to have received on behalf of the state and local governments, revenues well in excess of N538bn within the period under reference, therefore, the figures being currently touted by Mr. Governor are cooked, manipulated, fallacious and fraudulent. They are undeniable evidence of corruption!

“But in spite of all those huge earnings, and for no justifiable reasons, at least not justifiable before rationally thinking minds, coupled with the accumulation of foreign and local debts, Mr. Governor could still not provide the much touted infrastructures and to make matters worse, he couldn’t even discharge the simplest and least complicated of functions in governance, which is to maintain the civil service, pay pensions, run public schools and hospitals, and the maintenance of existing ‘Trunk B’ Roads.”

The state House of assembly had set up a panel to investigate the judge’s petition but she had disagreed with the panel.

The judge, who did not show up in person before the panel, had sent her counsel, Mr. Lanre Ogunlesi (SAN) to represent her and she complained that the panel ought to make a copy of Aregbesola’s reply to her petition available to her for further action.

But the panel headed by Mr. Adegboye Akintunde, who is also the deputy speaker of the House, disagreed with the judge’s request, saying the panel was not obligated to make the response of the defendant available to the petitioner.

The two week given the panel to investigate the petition had expired last Friday.

Efforts by The PUNCH to reach the Head of Media and Publicity, EFCC, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, to comment on the development on Sunday was not successful as repeated calls to his mobile telephone line indicated that it was either switched off or in an area outside network coverage.